The Guatemalans born in 1965 You can already request your Retirement pension of the Guatemalan Social Security Institute (IGSS).
However, one of the main requirements to initiate this procedure is to have a Complete and verifiable labor historywhich can represent a challenge, especially for those who began working before the digitalization of the employer records.
Beyond the Recommendation letters that serve to apply to new jobs, Remember who their employers have been Throughout your working life it is key to accessing Benefits of IGSSespecially when managing the old age pension.
Although the IGSS authorities claim that it is enough that the affiliate remembers the name of the companies in which he worked, to have More information and support documentation It facilitates and speeds up the process. The more data you have at your disposal, the lower the obstacles during the verification.
The electronic form: an advance with limitations
The IGSS electronic payroll It became mandatory as of July 2015, in accordance with the 2-2014 Agreement of the IGSS Management.
Then, in 2020 the Affiliate portal. Where affiliates can consult and verify if their employer has made the contributions corresponding to all IGSS programs.
However, this digital tool has Important emptysince the records prior to 2010 or 2011 are not mostly available online.
This means that those who started working before that date They could not have a digital record of their contributionsbecause the data is protected in physical archives of the IGSS or the employers.
The reconstruction of the labor history is vital for the pension
To request the old age pensionthe affiliate must have fulfilled 60 years and have at least 240 quoted installmentswhich is equivalent to 20 years of contributions.
Therefore, rebuild your work history It is a key task, especially if it began working in the 1980s.
Claudia Sentes, head of the Department of Disability, Old Age and Survival (IVS), explains that one of the first and most demanding steps of the process is the quote with the affiliate to rebuild your working life.
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For a person who began his working life at age 20, for example, it would be necessary to remember jobs from 1985 to at least 2010. This represents a challenge for memory, although for new generations, with digital history, the procedure will be easier.
How to start reconstructing labor history?
- Your user believes in the IGSS Affiliate Portal. This step will allow you to know since when your information is available online and establish a starting point.
- Identify previous employers. Do it with the help of recommendation letters, labor contracts or any other document that shows its passage through a company. It is important Write down the exact name of the employer and the dates on which he worked.
- With this information, you can request the IGSS to Labor history. The institution will seek in its archives the forms corresponding to the dates and employers indicated to issue a record of their contributions.
Why can the pension application process take?
According to setes, the process of request for pension for old age It can take up to 12 monthswhile the disability or survival pension takes on average 3 months.
However, The lack of clarity in labor history It is one of the main causes of lengthening processes.
During 2024, the IGSS has managed to meet 60% of the applications entered, while the remaining 40% continues in process.
Sentes clarifies that there are requests from past years in process, but these are due to the fact that they are Cases appealed after a pension denialwhich forces the IGSS to verify the records again.
What happens if there are errors or lack of documentation?
One of the current challenges, according to the head of the IVS, is that Some digitized documents are incomplete, poorly scanned or present errorswhich complicates validation. In these cases, the IGSS must go to companies to request copies of the original forms.
However, this can be problematic if it is employers who They operated decades ago and that they no longer have historical archives or have even closed. There are also cases in which a employer has had multiple employer records.
The IVS file department: a large -scale operation
He IVS Archive Department It is the largest area within the program. His staff works seven days a week in three shifts: day, mixed and weekends. Its objective is to locate the physical records of affiliates to support pension requests.
The payrolls are filed by employer numberso having this data significantly speeds up the process. You can also search by name or address of the company, but these cases usually take more.